Ryan Reynolds has been cast as Detective Pikachu in the upcoming movie

Detective Pikachu, a 3DS eShop game that has, so far, only released in Japan, is getting a Hollywood film – we’ve known that for a while. Casting has begun – Kathryn Newton and Justice Smith are lined up to play the eponymous detective’s human friends – but now a big ol’ Hollywood star is attached too.

Now, The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Ryan Reynolds has been cast as Detective Pikachu himself. Reynolds will lend his voice to the electric rat, in a performance that will apparently rely on a lot of motion capture.

The film will be directed by Rob Letterman, who previously directed the honestly-pretty-good Goosebumps movie. There are some plot details in the report, too: Smith’s character will be teaming up with the detective after the disappearance of his father. Whether or not other Pokemon will feature is unclear.

The Internet’s first choice for the role was the great Danny DeVito, because Frank from Always Sunny coming out of Pikachu’s cute little face is a surprisingly good fit. It seems that Hollywood went in a different direction, and that Pikachu won’t be offering anyone eggs or rum ham, which is a shame.

Funnily enough, there’s still no word on whether or not the original Detective Pikachu game will ever be released outside of Japan, or whether he’ll have another outing. Perhaps we’ll see a videogame tie-in down the track.

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